Mama, are those cars?

There are lots of downsides to living in Houston, starting (and ending I guess) with the weather from about the end of March through November. This year we've gotten lucky weather-wise, and yesterday we ventured out in the first 100+ heat index days to partake of a Houston tradition - Art Car.

Now I'm annoyed that we never went before - it was incredible (and, as Ironman pointed out, something that would not be out of place in Brattleboro) and far outside the normal Houston scene.

There were dog cars (which the girls loved),

and all sorts of SE Texas critters. Like an alligator,

A cockroach,

A chicken,

And a redneck in an outhouse.

Then we had the political statements. First off, the M-Peach car,

And then a not-really-work-safe favorite, the Missile Dick Chicks,

complete with erect figurehead, and preceded down the road by these two fellows:

The crowning glory were the bumpstickers they were displaying "Cheney-Satan, 08".

The grand winner was The Lady of Transportation, a truly impressive contraption.

Those are VW Bug hoods up there at the top

My two favorites were The Sashimi Tabernacle Choir,

240+ singing fish and lobsters, who all moved in unison as the car went down the road

and, of course, The Yarn Car.

More photos here for anyone who is interested. Next post: some type of finished object, I promise!

5/12/08 ETA: Tom Jones, curator of the Art Car Museum here in Houston, was killed in a tragic car accident early Sunday morning following the parade and festivities. Read more here. Thank you Tom for such a wonderful event and for bringing more beauty and joy to the streets.

I got nothing

OK, that's not entirely accurate, but I don't have anything of note to show you. I have two almost finished socks, which, unfortunately, are not of the same pair. I have a Summertime Tunic that looks mostly the same as last time, only most of a hank of Premiere longer. I have a baby blanket that is trapped in intarsia hell, and probably needs a time out, but if I do that it won't be done by Devil's birthday. Oh hell, who am I kidding - it's not going to be done anyway...

It's springtime here in Houston, which makes for longer days and really nice weather for working out. I've entered a couple of races, so I've been trying to get in some consistent training in preparation. Running is going OK, swimming is fine - if I get in the pool twice a week I'm happy - but cycling has really been taking a hit. The problem is that cycling is time intensive; ideally I'd be riding at least three times a week, but that means at least an hour and a half out of the day, if not longer. Finding that time is tough with the kiddos around. Until the last few weeks, I've been bonding with my trainer, but since the time change, it's possible to ride after work. Tonight Ironman took the kids home and I went for a ride.

The only downside is that the number of clueless folk on wheels dramatically increases this time of year, not only because of the weather, but because of an impending physical challenge that a lot of people (upwards of 15,000) participate in every year. It makes for fun times out on the bike path - tonight I had the honor of being in the front row for a lovely bike-on-bike collision at a T intersection on the bike path. Thankfully everyone was going pretty slowly and no one was hurt, but harsh words were thrown and things got a bit testy (kind of like the Rav MCY thread). But I rode on home, thankful to have been paying attention, and glad that the bluebonnets are blooming and it's really spring.

Of course, the downside to that, is that summer is just around the corner...

Signs of spring

Texas redbud

What we call the Grape Bubblegum tree - please let me know if you recognize it

Azaleas

And summer sweaters resting in the Mexican Heather

The Summertime Tunic halves are joined and the body is started. Unfortunately what you see above is 2 balls of the 5 available. Hmmmm...might be an awfully short sweater, and God knows my midriff doesn't need that much baring. The good news is that I'm knitting the 37.5 size, and it looks to me like it might be quite big. First chance I get to take it off the needles (probably after ball #3), I'll try it on. I might be able to go down to the next smallest size successfully, since I don't want a whole lot of ease.

Unfortunately, this weekend has been a knitting-free zone - my right hand/wrist have been sore for a few days. I've got a bone deposit on the back of my hand that normally doesn't bother me at all, but if I'm doing a lot of hand motions that involve flexing my wrist, the tendons on the back of my hand get annoyed. I guess there's been too much rabid Firestarter knitting in the last week or so (in addition to getting back out on my tri bike which also puts my wrists in a slightly uncomfortable position). In an attempt to let the tendons chill out a bit and recover, I replaced knitting with spinning over the weekend, and now I've got this sitting on the bobbin.

Last month's (January's actually) HY Fiber Club, Verdant, 50/50 merino/mohair, in my first attempt to spin laceweight. It's a pain in the ass. The fiber is beautiful, and the actual spinning is going fine, but it's the winding on to the bobbin that ain't working so well. I'm currently adjusting the tension between the long-draw and wind-on portions of the program, and it seems to be working ok, but it's not terribly efficient. Plus it takes a really long time to spin 4 oz! No instant gratification here...I just hope I like the end product.

I'm off Wednesday to Portland, OR for a conference, so this may be the only post for the week. However, I have grand plans for finishing off multiple socks while I'm gone, so next week should bring many FOs (famous last words, right?)

Snow!

Well, theoretical snow at least. I just heard a weather report about the next cold front that's coming through southeast Texas in the next 36 hours, and they actually mentioned the dreaded "S" word.

Now I have lived in a number of places where snow was something of an anomaly, at least in any real amount, and it's been pretty entertaining to someone who did not get a snow day from sixth grade through high school graduation (and that's not because it didn't snow). Flashback to January 1996, driving from Boston back to grad school in DC one day after a blizzard dumped almost two feet of snow all the way down the eastern seaboard. Roads were dry and perfect until the Mason-Dixon line, at which point a sudden salt famine set in, and pinko commies apparently had stolen every snow plow in a 500 mile radius because Rt. 95 was glare ice and my street in Arlington, VA didn't get plowed for two weeks. Ehem.

Or the lovely afternoon I got to ride my bike to the pool at U of AZ through the wet slushy snowflakes the size of quarters. It didn't stick mind you, but it snowed in Tucson. Very exciting (the mountains around Tucson get plenty of snow in the winter, but it doesn't happen in town very often).

But Houston kind of takes the cake. It has "snowed" here once in the five years we've lived here - Christmas Eve 2004. Ironman and I went outside and danced around in the small white pellets falling from the sky. I took pictures of snow piled up in the cups of the philodendron leaves, and tried for arty shots of "snowflakes" falling. It was pretty neat, but like Tucson, not around for the duration (although Victoria, TX, southwest of Houston, got almost a foot, and the paper the next day had a front page picture of a snowman someone built on the beach in Galveston). It was pretty entertaining, but more so was the fact that the "snowstorm" was all anyone talked about for days afterwards.

And now, in March for god's sake, they're saying it might snow. All I know is that I'm going to be eagerly watching to see what kind of precautions my neighbors take. Stocking up on firewood*, clearing out the milk and bread at the grocery store^? In preparation for the imminent freeze, here is (finally) a picture of some warm, cozy, size 11.5 Trekking XXL socks to keep us from succumbing to the elements.

Dad's Christmas socks, actually on Dad

* for "firewood", read "gas" for the gas fires that most people have. Hell, even we have a gas log in our fireplace - it gives Ironman (who grew up in a house that was at least, in part, heated by firewood) a huge kick to say "Well, I guess it's time to turn off the fire" on one of the five days a year we use it.
^ because, you know, we might get snowed in! (Note: this is my pet peeve held over from living in the DC metro area for 5+ years. Every time snow was forecast, I could guarantee that the grocery stores would be a) packed to the gills and b) cleaned out of staples within four hours of the forecast.)